General

Q) What is Arch Linux?

Q) Why would I want to use Arch?

A) If, after reading about the The Arch Way philosophy, you wish to embrace the 'do-it-yourself' approach and require or desire a simple, elegant, highly customizable, bleeding edge, general purpose GNU/Linux distribution, you may like Arch.

Q) Why would I not want to use Arch?

you do not have the ability/time/desire for a 'do-it-yourself' GNU/Linux distribution.

you require support for an architecture other than x86_64 or i686.

you take a strong stand on using a distribution which only provides free software as defined by GNU.

you believe an operating system should configure itself, run out of the box, and include a complete default set of software and desktop environment on the installation media.

you do not want a bleeding edge, rolling release GNU/Linux distribution.

you are happy with your current OS.

you want an OS that targets a different userbase.

you are not insane enough to run an OS developed by Allan

Q) What distribution is Arch based on?

A) Arch is independently developed, was built from scratch and is not based on any other GNU/Linux distribution. Before creating Arch, Judd Vinet admired and used CRUX, a great, minimalist distribution created by Per Lidén. Originally inspired by ideas in common with CRUX, Arch was built from scratch, and pacman was then coded in C.

Q) I am a complete GNU/Linux beginner. Should I use Arch?

A) This question has had much debate. Arch is targeted more towards advanced GNU/Linux users, but some people feel that Arch is a good place to start for the motivated novice. If you are a beginner and want to use Arch, just be warned that you must be willing to invest significant time into learning a new system, as well as accept the fact that Arch is fundamentally designed as a DIY (Do-It-Yourself) distribution. It is the user who assembles the system and controls what it will become. Before asking for help, do your own independent research by Googling, searching the forum (and reading the rest of these FAQs) and searching the superb documentation provided by the Arch Wiki. There is a reason these resources were made available to you in the first place. Many thousands of volunteered hours have been spent compiling this excellent information.

Q) Arch requires too much time and effort to install and use. Also, the community keeps telling me to RTFM in so many words

A) Arch is designed for and used by a specifically targeted user base. Perhaps it is not right for you. See above.

Q) Is Arch designed to be used as a server? A desktop? A workstation?

A) Arch is not designed for any particular type of use. Rather, it is designed for a particular type of user. Arch targets competent users who enjoy its do-it-yourself nature, and who further exploit it to shape the system to fit their unique needs. Therefore, in the hands of its target user base, Arch can be used for virtually any purpose. Many use Arch on both their desktops and workstations. And of course, archlinux.org runs on Arch.

Q) I really like Arch, except the development team needs to implement "feature X"

A) Before going further, did you read The Arch Way? Have you provided the feature/solution? Does it conform to the Arch philosophy of minimalism and code-correctness over convenience? Get involved, contribute your code/solution to the community. If it is well regarded by the community and development team, perhaps it will be merged. The Arch community thrives on contribution and sharing of code and tools.

Q) When will the new release be made available?

A) Arch Linux releases are simply a snapshot of the [core] repository, and are issued usually in the first half of every month.

The rolling release model keeps every Arch Linux system current and on the bleeding edge by issuing one command. For this reason, releases are not terribly important in Arch, because they become out of date as soon as a package has been updated. If you are looking to obtain the latest Arch Linux release, you do not need to reinstall. You simply run the pacman -Syu command, and your system will be identical to what you would get with a brand-new install. For this same reason, new Arch Linux releases are not typically full of new and exciting features. New and exciting features are released as needed with the packages that are updated, and can be obtained immediately via pacman -Syu.

Q) Is Arch Linux a stable distribution? Will I get frequent breakage?

A) The short answer is: It is largely as stable as you make it.

You assemble your own Arch system, atop the simple base environment, and you control system upgrades. Obviously, a larger, more complicated system incorporating multitudes of customized packages, and a plethora of toolkits and desktop environments would be more likely to experience configuration problems due to upstream changes than a slimmer, more simple system would. Arch is targeted at capable, proactive users. General UNIX competence and good system maintenance and upgrade practices also play a large role in system stability. Also recall that Arch packages are predominantly unpatched, so most application problems are inherently upstream.

Therefore, it is the user who is ultimately responsible for the stability of his own rolling release system. The user decides when to upgrade, and merges necessary changes when required. If the user reaches out to the community for help, it is often provided in a timely manner. The difference between Arch and other distributions in this regard is that Arch is truly a 'do-it-yourself' distribution; complaints of breakage are misguided and unproductive, since upstream changes are not the responsibility of Arch devs.

Q) Arch needs more press (i.e. advertisement)

A) Arch gets plenty of press as it is. The goal of Arch Linux is not to be large, but rather, to provide an elegant, minimalist and bleeding edge distribution focused on simplicity and code-correctness. Organic, sustainable growth occurs naturally amongst the target user base.

Q) Arch needs more developers

A) Possibly so. Feel free to volunteer your time! Visit the forums, IRC channels, and mailing lists, and see what needs to be done. Getting involved in the Community Contributions subforum is a good way to start.

Q) Why is my internet so slow compared to other operating systems?

Also note that Arch Linux does not come with traffic shaping enabled. Thus, it is possible that if a program on it somehow utilizes your internet connection to the full – regardless if it's over P2P or classic client-server connections – other local ones will find it clogged, resulting in severe lags and timeouts. Relief can be provided by firewalls such as Shorewall or Vuurmuur; there are also static scripts for iproute2 (such as this derivative of Wondershaper), which allow shaping on the network layer.

Q) Why is Arch using all my RAM?

A) Essentially, unused RAM is wasted RAM.

Many new users notice how the Linux kernel handles memory differently than they are used to. Since accessing data from RAM is much faster than from a storage drive, the kernel caches recently accessed data in memory. The cached data is only cleared when the system begins to run out of available memory and new data needs to be loaded.

Perhaps the most common culprit of this confusion is the free command:

It is important to note the -/+ buffers/cache: line -- a representation of the amount of memory that is actually in "active use" and the amount of "available" memory, rather than "unused".

In the above example, a laptop with 1G of total RAM appears to be using 741M of it, with naught but a few idling terminals and a web browser open! However, upon examining the emphasized line, see that only 278M of it is in "active use", and in fact 731M is "available" for new data. Apparently, 104M of that "used" memory contains buffered data and 359M contains cached data, both of which can be cleared away if needed. Only 267M of the total is truly "free" of the burden of data storage.

Package Management

Q) In which package is X?

Q) I've found an error with Package X. What should I do?

A) First, you need to figure out if this error is something the Arch team can fix. Sometimes it's not (e.g. Firefox crashes may be the fault of the Mozilla team); this is called an upstream error. If it is an Arch problem, there is a series of steps you can take:

If you'd like, write a forum post detailing the problem and the fact that you have reported it already. This will help prevent a lot of people from reporting the same error.

Q) Arch packages need to use a unique naming convention. ".pkg.tar.gz" and ".pkg.tar.xz" are too long and/or confusing

A) This has been discussed on the Arch mailing list. Some proposed a .pac file extension. As far as is currently known, there is no plan to change the package extension. As Tobias Kieslich, one of the Arch devs, put it, "A package is a gzipped [xz] tarball! And it can be opened, investigated and manipulated by any tar-capable application. Moreover, the mime-type is automatically detected correctly by most applications."

Q) Pacman needs a library so other applications can easily access package information

A) Since version 3.0.0, pacman has been the front-end to libalpm, the "Arch Linux Package Management" library. This library allows alternative front-ends to be written (for instance, a GUI front-end).

Q) Why doesn't pacman have an official GUI front-end?

A) Please read The Arch Way and Arch Linux. Basically, the answer is that the Arch dev team will not be providing one. Feel free to use one developed by other users. A selective list can be found in Pacman GUI Frontends.

Q) Pacman needs "feature X"!

A) Please read The Arch Way and Arch Linux. The Arch philosophy is "Keep It Simple". If you think the idea has merit, and does not violate this simple litany, then you may choose to discuss it on the forum here. You might also like to check here; it is a place for feature requests if you find it is important.

However, the best way to get a feature added to pacman or Arch Linux is to implement it yourself. The patch or code may or may not be officially accepted, but perhaps others will appreciate, test and contribute to your effort.

Q) Arch needs a stable package branch

Q) What is the difference between all these repositories?

Q) I just installed Package X. How do I start it?

A) If you're using a desktop environment like KDE or GNOME, the program should automatically show up in your menu. If you're trying to run the program from a terminal and do not know the binary name, use:

$ pacman -Qlq package_name | grep /usr/bin/

Q) Why is there only a single version of each shared library in the official repositories?

A) Several distributions, such as Debian, have different versions of shared libraries packaged as different packages: libfoo1, libfoo2, libfoo3 and so on. In this way it is possible to have apps compiled against different versions of libfoo installed on the same system.

Unlike Debian, Arch is a rolling-release cutting-edge distribution. The most visible trait of a cutting-edge distribution is availability of the latest versions of software in the repositories; in case of a distribution like Arch, it also means that only the latest versions of all packages are officially supported. By dropping support for outdated software, package maintainers are able to spend more time ensuring that the newest versions work as expected. As soon as a new version of a shared library becomes available from upstream, it is added to the repositories and affected packages are rebuilt to utilize the new version.

Q) What if I run "pacman -Syu" and there will be an update for a shared library, but not for the apps that depend on it?

A) This scenario should not happen at all. Assuming an application called foobaz is in one of the official repositories and builds successfully against a new version of a shared library called libbaz, it will be updated along with libbaz. If, however, it doesn't build successfully, foobaz package will have a versioned dependency (e.g. libbaz 1.5), and will be removed by pacman during libbaz upgrade, due to a conflict.

If foobaz is a package that you built yourself and installed from AUR, you should try rebuilding foobaz against the new version of libbaz. If the build fails, report the bug to the foobaz developers.

Q) Is it possible that there's a major kernel update in the repository, and that some of the driver packages haven't been updated?

A) No, it is not possible. Major kernel updates (e.g. linux 3.5.0-1 to linux 3.6.0-1) are always accompanied by rebuilds of all supported kernel driver packages. On the other hand, if you have an unsupported driver package installed on your system, such as catalystAUR, then a kernel update might break things for you if you do not rebuild it for the new kernel. Users are responsible for updating any unsupported driver packages that they have installed.

Q) Does Arch use package signing?

A) Yes. Package signing in pacman has been implemented since version 4. See package signing for more information.

Installation

Q) Arch needs an installer. Maybe a GUI installer?

A) Since installation doesn't occur often (read the rest of this article to know more about what rolling release means), it is not a high priority for developers or users. The Installation guide and Beginners' guide have been fully updated to use the command-line method. If you're still interested in using an installer, consider using Archboot.

Q) What makes Arch unique amongst other "minimal" distributions?

A) Some distributions may provide minimal installation methods, sharing some similarities to the Arch installation process. However, a few points must be noted:

Arch has been fundamentally designed as a lightweight, minimal base environment upon which to build.

The only way to install Arch is by building up from this minimal base.

The base system and the entire distribution are inherently a K.I.S.S. design approach, which makes it uniquely suitable for its target base of users.

Installing services and packages requires manual, interactive user configuration. Unlike other distributions which automatically configure services and startup behavior, the Arch philosophy puts emphasis on the power user's competence and prerogative to handle such responsibilities.

Arch packaging is designed to be minimal, and optional package dependencies are never automatically installed. Rather, the user is simply notified of their existence during package installation, resulting in a slimmer system.

Arch provides excellent, thorough documentation, aiding in the process of system assembly.